skipthelightfandango

Man of Many Winds

After the third day of a recent visit to London, I was stricken with an extremely aggravating and very uncomfortable case of indigestion.  My gut had turned to stone.

Having greedily consumed roughly my own weight in fish and chips, bangers and mash, coleslaw sandwiches, steak and kidney pie, scones with clotted cream, Yorkshire pudding, (several variations on the Ploughman’s Lunch) and something called “bubble and squeak”, my besieged Midwestern colon took several major organs hostage, shut down all operations and refused to negotiate.

The following morning as we made our way to St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey, I stopped at the chemist’s to find relief.  Nothing looked even vaguely familiar until I found, hidden among the other heartburn mints, BISODOL, a name I hadn’t heard since I was a kid.  I grabbed them and headed to the cashier.  But, what clinched the sale was what I read on the side of the box;

“ Triple-action formula containing three powerful antacids which quickly and effectively neutralise excess acid in the stomach to provide effective, rapid relief from acid indigestion, trapped wind and heartburn. Original Peppermint Flavour.”

I instantly became eleven years old again. My idiotic snickering and juvenile wordplay completely embarrassed my girlfriend.  I mean…Trapped Wind, fergodsakes.  Come on!

When we returned home I wasted no time compiling a list of phrases, song and book titles and anything else I could think of that contained the word “wind” and inserted the word “trapped”.

This may not be the dumbest, most tastelessly sophomoric waste of time I’ve ever indulged in, but it’s very, very close.

Blowin’ in the Trapped wind

The Trapped Wind in the Willows

The Trapped Wind Beneath My Wings

Inherit the Trapped Wind

The Trapped Winds of War

Earth, Trapped Wind and Fire

Dust in the Trapped Wind

Gone With the Trapped Wind

Candle in the Trapped Wind

Three Sheets to the Trapped Wind

Throwing caution to the Trapped Winds

Catching your second Trapped Wind

They Call the Trapped Wind Mariah

Mandolin Trapped Wind

The Trapped Windmills of Your Mind

Left twisting in the Trapped Wind

With the Trapped Wind at your back

Trapped Windchimes

To have the Trapped Wind knocked out of you

Free as the Trapped Wind

Hasten Down the Trapped Wind

The Summer Trapped Wind (with apologies to Old Blue Eyes)

Whistle Down the Trapped Wind

Run like the Trapped Wind

Cast Your Fate to the Trapped Wind

Any way the Trapped Wind blows

Against the Trapped Wind

The Trapped Wind Cries Mary

The Trapped Wind Chill Factor

Weiner Logic

I am a very clean guy.  I shave every morning.  I shower thoroughly every day, sometimes twice a day in the summer.  I use deodorant and aftershave lotion. I brush my teeth twice, often three times, a day.  I floss and gargle most days.  I keep my nails clean and clipped.  I am a very clean guy.

It is from this perspective that I ask you to consider this question; why am I expected to wash my hands after I pee?  It is my long-considered contention that a man should wash his hands before he pees and not after.

I know all the reasons for restaurant workers washing their hands after using the restrooms. I understand about teaching our children basic hygiene.  And I don’t necessarily agree that Americans have an obsession with cleanliness.  What I object to is the assumption that I am unable to avoid peeing on myself.

I mastered the fine points of continence and of not urinating on my hands about 50 years ago.  I have had the few, normal “splash-back” experiences that all men have had. I am fully aware that a restroom, private or public, is an inherently unhealthy environment.  But 999 times out of 1000, I don’t need to wash my hands after I pee.  Let’s be logical here for one minute.

Every day I enter the shower and wash my entire body, top to bottom and all the terrain between, front and back, with good soap and hot water.  I dry off with freshly washed towels.  I put on freshly laundered, clean underwear and clean clothes over them.  At that moment in time, few things outside of a sterile operating room are cleaner than my penis.  It is freshly scrubbed, lovingly dried and safely tucked away in spotless garments.  Off I go to start my busy day.  Are you still with me?

OK, now let’s talk about my hands.  As I go about the first dozen or so of my daily tasks, I am likely to touch a daunting collection of filthy, bacteria-infested, microbe-ridden door handles, shopping carts, money, pens, papers, telephones and other seemingly harmless objects.  Add to this the number of hands I may have to shake, (and who knows where the hell they’ve been?), and my hands now qualify for an EPA Super Fund cleanup operation.  My hands couldn’t possibly be more contaminated and I feel the urgent need to pee.

Logically speaking and from the standpoint of good personal hygiene, does it make any sense to put those dirty, dangerous hands on another part of my body?  (Especially one that I know to be absolutely squeaky-clean, nestled in its cozy cotton nest?)  Would I put even one fingertip in my mouth or nose?  Would I make a sandwich with those crummy, nasty hands?  Of course not.  My penis is clean.  My hands are toxic. 

Ergo, according to the accepted rules of hygiene, men should wash their hands before they pee.  Touching a clean penis with dirty hands is the very essence of poor personal hygiene. Washing your hands after you pee should depend on whether you’ve touched the flush-handle or the doorknob…or in the unlikely event you have urine on your hands.

And don’t get lured into the pathetic theatrics of turning on the faucet for the sole purpose of making the people outside the bathroom think you’re washing your hands.  How many times have you started out of the bathroom and thought, “I better make a show of washing my hands so they don’t think I’m some kind of barbarian.”?  So you turn on the water and let it run for 20 seconds while you admire yourself in the mirror or poke around in the medicine cabinet. 

You’re not fooling anybody, pal.

Idle hands...

This is how bored I was on February 3rd, 2003.  And, yes...you're damned right I mailed it.

The Honorable Patrick J. Tiberi

2700 East Dublin Granville Rd.

Suite 525

Columbus, OH 43231

Dear Representative Tiberi,

As you are aware, the colorful and varied threads woven into the tapestry of our national character have given rise to numerous holidays, weeks of observance and months of celebration.  In February alone we celebrate Black History Month, Creole Heritage Day, Bird Feeding Month, Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month and National Sea Monkey Day.

Having barely survived Oatmeal Month in January, we will next month solemnly observe Women’s History Month.  And throughout the coming year we will join our neighbors, friends and families commemorating Columbus Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Labor Day, Earth Day, United Nations Day, Friendship Day, Pickle Week, Asian-Pacific Islander Week, National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Month (April), Taiwanese-American Week, Hispanic Heritage Month, Gay Pride Week, Christian Heritage Week, Jewish Heritage Week, National Waffle Week, Ugly Truck Day and Spoil Your Dog Day to name just a few.

Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of good Americans will earnestly and joyously celebrate each of these humble and esteemed occasions.  (I actually know a gay, Jewish, African-American who spoils his dog with waffles.)  I am proud and thrilled that you and I, Congressman, live in a land that offers each of its citizens, no matter how significant or obscure his/her ethnicity, pastimes, appetites and/or lifestyle, the opportunity to “strut their stuff” and revel in their individuality.  I enthusiastically join them in their celebrations.

My problem is that, as a heterosexual, middle-aged, middle-class Caucasian male of mixed European lineage, I feel very much slighted and ignored.  There is not a single significant day on the calendar that pays homage to average white men.

And so, I would like you to introduce a proposal on the floor of the House of Representatives to set aside July 15^th each year as “Average White Guy Day”.  We don’t need a whole month.  We don’t even require an entire week.  All I ask it that, for one warm, Summer day, millions of proud American men like me are recognized for our ordinariness.

I envision a special day set aside so that Average White Men all across this great land of ours can go unshaven in their baggy shorts, wash their American-made cars, listen to The Beach Boys and Billy Joel, mow their lawns, barbecue, drink domestic beers and wines, talk baseball, complain about the weather, take an antacid and go to bed early…and be honored for it.

I am absolutely serious about this, Congressman Tiberi.  I have conferred with scores of friends and acquaintances of every ethnic, sexual and religious persuasion and they unanimously agree it is a great idea.  Most important, none of them found it offensive or insulting in the least.

So, if there is anything I need to do further from my home base here in Dublin, Ohio, let me know.  I am ready to draft a petition and take it door-to-door throughout the community, to civic events, to the library, to the media…whatever it takes.

I look forward to working hand in hand with you in making “Average White Guy Day” a reality and I eagerly await your prompt reply.  I am sending a copy of this to your Washington, DC office and to your email address, also.  Let’s get to work!

Sincerely,

Thomas P. Buechler

Pay-Per-View, Baby!

I was born in 1948.  Among other less important world events of that year were the death of Babe Ruth and the birth of the State of Israel.  These things happened over a half-century ago.  The Bambino doesn’t make the headlines often anymore, but news of the situation in the Middle East and Israel is relentless.

One of the tongue-in-cheek clichés in our house is that “the Middle East situation is desperate.”  One doesn’t need to watch the news or read the paper.  No matter what else may be happening on this great, green planet of ours, you may rest assured that the Semites are finding new and improved ways of maiming and slaughtering one another.

As I understand it, Jews and Arabs are members of the same tribe.  Shem was one of the sons of Noah and his descendants are called Shemites (or as we know them, Semites, as the word was Anglicized.)  I am also instructed that the political definition of a Semite is one who is a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arabs and their descendants.  They are members of a “modern” people speaking a Semitic language.

The Semites are a warrior culture.  They do two things well; rabidly worshipping the same deity (albeit by two different names) and killing each other with enormous glee and admirable efficiency.  There is absolutely no reason whatever to think the situation will ever change.  Notice I did not say “soon” or “in the near future”.  There is not one single reason to assume that our grandchildren won’t be reading virtually the same headlines a half-century from now.

Imagine getting up tomorrow and reading the headline, “Billy Graham’s Grandson Firebombs Home of Dalai Lama’s Granddaughter”. The situation in the Middle East is no less mindless, no less infantile, not one scintilla less moronic than that.

And, after listening to the same news, reading the same headlines, seeing the same hideous pictures from the Middle East for 53 years, I don’t really care anymore how long they go on killing each other.  I am sick of hearing about it.  It’s old news and I have become deadened to its impact.  If they are that intent on annihilating each other…more power to them. 

I have devised what I think is a solution to “The Middle East Problem”.  It is controversial and radical but it is also viable, cost-effective, permanent and equitable.  But I am convinced that, as time goes on, as the bodies continue to stack up and the public outcry inexorably falls off to become a disinterested murmur, my plan will begin to look increasingly appealing.  To wit;

An alliance of interested Arab and Western states form a coalition to contract with the governments of the world’s largest drug producing states for the purchase of 50,000 kilos of heroine, methamphetamine, crack cocaine and whatever may be the newest and most addictive and mindcrushing pharmaceuticals on the planet. This happy little bundle is airlifted and dropped, in equal proportions to Jewish and Arab communities, within a 30-mile radius of Jerusalem.

Ten days later, (when the level of violence, butchery and madness has reached a level of ferocity that concerns even the most malevolent of observers), the coalition airlifts 50,000 kilos of assorted automatic weapons, ammunition and alcohol.

Two days later, the coalition airlifts 6 simple but potent, ready-to-wear nuclear devices (six to each side), with complete instructions on their use, range and efficacy.

I foresee hours of riveting TV viewing, new ratings records for all the networks and peace in the valley.  Hey, what the hell...like you have a better idea.

New Kewler Fallout

I compiled a list of some of the most annoyingly mispronounced or misused words in American English.  Most of them fell more into the categories of colloquialisms or speech impediments: “worsh” for wash; “wonst” for once; “off-ten” (hard “t”) for often; “crane” for crayon; the very tricky “lair-nix” for larynx; and the perennial “irregardless”.  But I have managed to narrow it down to five, “nuclear” being the first.

I like and respect Former President Jimmy Carter, but he has to share part of the blame for this. Carter repeatedly mispronounced the word “nuclear” as “new-cue-ler” and he, of all people, should have known better.  To this day, it makes my teeth grind and my few remaining hairs stand on end every time I hear someone talking about “nookyooler power” or “nookyooler weapons”.  Try this: say the words “new” and “clear” together.  See how easy that was?

Second on my list is an irritating malapropism; the juxtaposition of “prostate” and  “prostrate”. I think it’s safe to attribute this one to just plain laziness.  Growing up Catholic, I heard the word “prostrate” at Mass and learned that it meant to lie face down on the ground, as if in submission or humility. Many years later, of course, I began paying closer attention to my “prostate” gland.  I suppose people who make this mistake may have heard the word “prostrate” in church and assumed it was the same word as the name of the gland.  Well, it isn’t, damn it.   And, for you gentlemen; if you are being treated by a doctor who wants to examine your  “prostrate”, find another doctor.

In the coveted third position on the list is use of “ax” where one means “ask”.  And this one could be dicey in today’s atmosphere of political correctness.  But only if I cared about that.  This is a misuse found predominantly in the African-American community, although I have heard it used once or twice by non-Blacks.  It is part of a cultural heritage and, thus, acceptable. Most bothersome to me is that when people use “ax” in addressing me, they generally use it a bit timidly and much less comfortably than with their non-white friends.  A black former co-worker of mine once confided to me over lunch, “You know we just do it to piss y’all off.”.  I’m pretty sure he was kidding me.  But it does piss me off.

Number four on my hit parade is people who say “lie-berry” in the place of “library”.  This one explains itself.  It is particularly abrasive because there is no plausible reason for anyone over the age of six to mispronounce this word.  I chalk this one up to plain old stupidity.

Last is a bizarre and disturbing phenomenon.  An alarming number of knotheads are saying “Old-timers” when they are talking about Alzheimer’s Disease.  It seems to be endemic to the gun-rack and Rebel flag clan.  The snuff dippin’, sleep-in-your-greasy-ball cap, proud-to-be-a-knuckle-dragger crowd.  Men who operate carnival rides, women who wear go-go boots and carry bowling bags, grade school drop-outs, good old folks who scoff at dentistry, education, shampoo and environmental causes.  The crème-de-la-crème of hillbilly chic.

This last bastardization of the language is clearly traceable to two idiosyncrasies of this species; Alzheimer’s is clearly a “foreign” word and therefore one would appear sissified and uppity by using it.  (Try to get one of them to say “croissant”.)  Second, many of these people are either semi-literate or completely illiterate.  That’s no laughing matter, but neither is it an excuse.

I haven’t ruled out that they do it just to piss me off.      

The hypnotized never lie...

"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." Justice William O. Douglas

Like a box of chocolates...

I’ve had many desks over the last fifteen years, but the same sign has proudly hung over all of them. The sign says, “Never Rule Out Stupidity”. 

I made the first sign while working for an enormous international banking conglomerate. It was originally intended to remind me to exercise restraint when dealing with “difficult” clients.  Later, it’s message came to include my interactions with the hysterical buffoons I worked for as well as (most of) my besieged, browbeaten coworkers.

Today that sign expresses my world-view and is the cornerstone of my personal philosophy. Well, almost.  But before you rush to categorize this suggestion as merely one more cute, trendy example of bumper sticker psycho-drivel, consider its message.

We try to understand why people do the things they do, say the things they say, act the way they act.  We try to give meaning to the events in our lives that fly in the face of common sense and defy logic.  Despite the experiences of a lifetime, we are always hopeful that people will conduct themselves reasonably and act in the best interests of all concerned.

And, when our logic and our intellect fail to lead us to an understanding of the actions of those around us, we are often quick to assume it is due to some shortcoming on our parts.  That if perhaps we just look deeper, work harder and apply even more reason, the answer will come to us.  Well…not necessarily.  But, there is hope.

First, you must accept and comprehend one ugly, unnerving and absolute truth; there are enormous numbers of profoundly stupid people all around us.  The Really Big Dictionary at my library defines “stupid” as “slow of mind…dulled in feeling or sensation…given to unintelligent decisions or acts.”  God, I love that one; “given to unintelligent decisions or acts.”  Remind you of anyone you’ve encountered today?  Remind you of everyone you’ve encountered today?

Stupidity is perhaps the most pernicious and pervasive of all afflictions. And it is, I believe, our single biggest national problem.  In my day-to-day existence, the effects of dealing with stupid people are more exhausting and frustrating than the difficulties of job, family, love, death, health and money combined.  Stupidity is ubiquitous.  It respects no boundaries. It is flourishes at every socio-economic level, in every race, gender, creed, color and religion.  We run smack into it every day, whether it’s at the grocery, on the phone, in traffic, at school, at work or just waiting for a train.

But what I find most baffling about the phenomenon of this profoundly deep-seated, tedious dumbness is our steadfast refusal to recognize and accept it at face value.  We go to the most extraordinary lengths to assign esoteric and farfetched explanations to the most blatantly cretinous behavior.  We bend over backwards to reassure ourselves that low blood-sugar is to blame for the popularity of professional wrestling.  The inability to park a five-foot wide car in a nine-foot wide space is readily blamed on poor potty training.  Leaving mounds of loaded, unlocked guns around children isn’t stupid; it’s your duty under the Second Amendment to the Constitution.  Poor hygiene, drug addiction and playing Russian Roulette are easily attributable to a sub-standard pre-school experience.

We are only too happy to blame every manner of feeble-minded, irresponsible, “unintelligent” behavior on tight shoes, sunspots, fluoridation, bad hair, allergic reaction, poltergeists or Daylight Savings Time.  The truth is so much simpler.

Stupidity is rampant in the land and we seem utterly helpless to combat it and unwilling to recognize it.  Dumbasses, knuckleheads and nitwits increasingly populate our world.  We are governed and bossed and directed by empty suits. “Stupid is as Stupid does”, to quote Forrest Gump.

So the next time you see or hear something so stunningly witless that it makes your jaw drop open, don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be. Resist the temptation to analyze or rationalize the other person’s action. When you think, “My God…that was stupid!”, go with that first impression. Never rule out stupidity.

Tastes like chicken...piss

The special tonight is ass

From: Reuters

From correspondents in Beijing

September 08, 2005

The cat is out of the bag at a restaurant in northeast China that had been serving donkey meat spiked with tiger urine in pricey dishes advertised as endangered Siberian tigers.

Local media in Heilongjiang province got wind the restaurant was offering stir-fried dishes and medicinal liquor made from tiger meat and bones, sparking local police and health inspectors to pounce, the China Daily said today.

"After inspection, the owner confessed that the so-called tiger meat was donkey meat that had been dressed with tiger urine to give the dish a 'special' flavour," the newspaper said.

The restaurant had been charging as much as $131 a dish for the illegal, "rare" fare, tapping into traditional Chinese belief that tiger meat has aphrodisiacal properties.

The restaurant was shut down and fined.

The director of the nearby Hengdaohezi Siberian Tiger Park, China's largest centre for breeding the highly endangered animals, reassured the public there was no way meat from its big cats had made its way to the dinner table, the newspaper said.

Only a few hundred Siberian tigers are believed to be alive in the wild in their native habitats of northern China, southern Russia and parts of North Korea.

The report did not explain where the tiger urine had come from or how it was collected.

Rituals

A large part of my admittedly shaky grasp on sanity (and, I suspect, yours also) is grounded in my personal daily rituals. 

I am convinced that the main reason we can cope with the stresses and uncertainties of our daily lives is this very strict, firm sets of rites and ceremonies.  Performed each and every day, performed the same way each day, these rituals give foundation and meaning to lives filled with vicissitudes and chaos.

I don’t mean animal sacrifice, flaming offerings to obscure deities or frenzied, slobbering, eye-rolling dancing.  By rituals I refer to that set of activities with which each of us start and end our days. These distinctly idiosyncratic, highly personalized daily rituals are critical cornerstones upon which to precariously frame our sanity. They allow us to awaken and go to sleep with a fundamental sense of basic order in an increasingly disorderly world.

They seem to be most rigidly established in our mornings, when we are very much in need of routine and structure; hit the snooze alarm, grab a robe, go to the bathroom, put on the coffee, shower, shave, brush, glance at the paper or TV, etc. Apple juice, never orange or tomato.  Left sock, right sock, left shoe, right shoe. Just the right amount of toothpaste.  Same way yesterday, same way tomorrow.

Although usually somewhat more relaxed in the evenings, our end-of-day routines are no less important to our sense of regularity and equilibrium; reading, homework, TV, games, dinner, shower, brush, etc. Pizza every Thursday.  Everyone in their favorite seat.  Same way yesterday, same way tomorrow.

It is that very tricky middle part of the day that necessitates the existence of our rituals.  Although our 9-to-5 lives may seem coordinated, orderly, often systematically controlled to the point of maddening tedium and sameness, they are still the portions of our days most open to the influence of outsiders, to haphazard events and alien invasion. 

We can only exercise a certain amount of control over what happens to us once we leave the confines of our homes and these small, seemingly innocuous activities, like solid bookends, are ever-present, helping us to cope with whatever goofiness and mayhem might befall us during the day.

Of course, the difference between these healthy, normal ceremonies and obsessive-compulsive behavior is not all that great.  I remember being told by my dentist (or my Mom, or my health teacher or somebody) to “chew each bite 100 times”.  Well, does that mean beef jerky, pudding, granola, steak AND oysters?  If we “cross every T and dot every I”, avoid stepping on every crack, never mix business with pleasure and check oil every time we fill up, etc., we will never get anything else done.   

So, embrace your daily rituals.  Floss, read the sports page, wash-rinse-repeat, clean the top of that soda can before you open it, put the bills in your wallet in a precise order and sequence.  These are altogether beneficial mechanisms to give us an essential sense of order and rhythm and well being.

But, if you find yourself opening the dishwasher at the end of each cycle, boiling your socks, dialing all the phone numbers in your book alphabetically until you get to the person you really want to call, muttering “Gravity is my friend” exactly 18 times before you get on an elevator, using a new comb every time you comb your hair or refusing to leave the house until every piece of silverware has been inventoried…get some professional help. 

Or just move to Los Angeles.

Cynicism / Skepticism

The contemporary definition of a cynic is “A person who is bitterly or sneeringly distrustful, contemptuous or pessimistic”.  Whereas, the definition of a skeptic is “A person who questions the validity, authenticity or truth of something purporting to be factual…”

We never hear of a person’s “healthy” cynicism, but I find a healthy skepticism is an agreeable quality in the people I meet.

I am admittedly and proudly skeptical.  But I take issue with anyone who interprets as cynicism my innate reluctance to blindly follow the herd, to swallow all I see on the network news or to dumbly queue up to be spoon-fed the latest, corporate disinformation dogma.  I have a fairly quick mind and a hair-trigger bullshit alarm which goes off every time I hear  “To be honest with you…”, “The consensus of opinion…”, “No strings attached…”, "A White House source..."  or (my personal favorite), “One hundred and ten percent…”

There is no shortage of people and situations in our daily lives richly deserving of our distrust and contempt; lying politicians, thieving preachers, jingoistic warlords, fraud, fakery, starvation, ignorance, bigotry, the avaricious destruction (and destroyers) of our planet.  Pick one.

Being a skeptic without being cynical is tricky.  For most of us, the difference is the ability to summon a pained smile and shake our heads at the truly ludicrous, while not fearing to raise our voices to protest the truly evil.

Be skeptical of anything that purports to hand you The Truth.

I wonder if he's sold all his slaves...

By SALATHEIA BRYANT and MÓNICA GUZMÁN
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

September 9^th, 2005

(From an article about distribution of debit cards…)

“This morning, U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's visit to the Reliant Park this offered him a glimpse of what it's like to be living in shelter.

While on the tour of a shelter with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots.

The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, ``Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?''

They nodded yes, but looked perplexed.

With a group of reporters and press officers in tow, DeLay then moved on, chatting with others, including a local IRS representative.”

(No doubt to remind the taxman that “these Niggras have had enough freebies” and to make sure they all get audited.  Tom DeLay is an absolutely useless, piece-of-shit, inbred cracker douche.)

Hell...a preview

I’m not a religious man, in the traditional sense.  I don’t go to church and I live by a somewhat esoteric grab bag of beliefs and tenets that have served me well over these last several years.  But, I was thinking about Hell a few days ago.  If there is a Hell and it truly is a place of endless and excruciating agonies, I think I now have a clearer vision of what my own little corner of it will look like. 

It’s late August.  It’s 108 degrees outside and the air conditioning at K-Mart is broken, making the temperature inside the store a steamy, stifling, sauna-like 99.  The sound of sporadic gunfire is heard in the Sporting Goods department. Someone’s kid, bombed out of his skull on Ritilan and Robitussen, has just spilled an entire gallon bottle of ammonia in the toy department.  Every fish, canary, turtle and gerbil in the Pet Area has expired as a result of the heat and the resulting stink rivals the ammonia’s bouquet. 

I am in the Express (8 Items or Less) Lane.  In front of me, a 400-lb woman in lime green toreador pants begins to unload the first of three shopping carts filled with small bags of buttons, spools of thread, greeting cards, cheese and beauty products.  She is apparently deaf, repeatedly shouting “WHAT?” at the cashier. (The cashier, a pimply, dedicated nose-picker, has just decided that today is her last day at K-Mart and plans to go to her car on her smoke break, return with her machete and get a few things straightened out with her supervisor.)

I am perspiring as if a faucet is running in each armpit.  Sweat is running off my head into my eyes.  I am clutching a Snickers, a roll of toilet paper and magazine.  My transaction should take two minutes.  I’ve been in line for 9 hours. 

The large woman in front of me opens a folder containing roughly 200 coupons, which promptly spill all over the floor. 

The fellow behind me is 7 feet-tall and has just urinated in his pants while loudly humming “Anchors Aweigh”.  He repeatedly pushes his cart into the backs of my heels.  When I turn to give him my patented “dirty look”, he hisses at me through five uneven, green teeth, “You best turn around, boy, ‘fore I yank your damn eyelids off.”

An hour earlier, I consumed two bran muffins, a stale burrito, four questionable green olives and a half pot of strong, black coffee.  The irresistable chemical reaction is about to come to its inevitable, ugly climax.

The cash register tape breaks.  The fat lady decides she wants to pay for her purchase in pesos.  The guy behind me leans forward to belch on my neck. 

More shots from Sporting Goods.  Every kid in the store is screaming.  I am seized by an enormous, powerful, urgent cramp deep in my bowels….

Fade to black.  And I do it all over again.  Forever.

Fair my ass...

As you have no doubt noticed by now, there is a considerable list of things that piss me off, annoy me and otherwise get under my skin.  In the last several years one item rapidly moving up the charts is people harping about things in their lives not being “fair”.  Are they serious about this?  Really?

To imply that societies are governed or administered in a fashion that guarantees every citizen an equal share of the wealth or justice is ridiculous.  That would be to ignore history and the reality of our world.  The rich DO get rich and the poor DO get poorer.  That we do not always get what we want has nothing to do with fairness.  It has to do with the stark reality that what you awaken to each morning is all you get.  And what you do with it is up to you.

This facile assumption that we are owed “fairness”, believing that all the events of our lives are meant to fall neatly into place and leave us content and fulfilled is the epitome of hubris.  Life is chaos and to accept the New Age mumbo jumbo that “everything happens for a reason” is to ignore the element of disorder and accept that every event is predetermined.  This leaves no room for free will.  Personally, I steadfastly refuse to surrender that principle or to accept the fashionable view that we all are merely metaphysical marionettes.

To complain that your situation is unfair is childish.  You are where you are and that’s all there is to it.   It has nothing to do with predestination, karma, astrology, eye color, shoe size, penis size, breast size or your parents’ not taking you to Disney World.  It most certainly has nothing to do with whether you are getting a “fair” deal or not. 

I think you’ll have a better day tomorrow if you remove the word “fair” from your vocabulary and replace it with “convenient”.

Masterfully told...

From the desk of Keith Olbermann, the one man on television who will not be pigeonholed;

Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."

Well there's your problem right there.

If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government's response to a crisis, this was it.

The seeming definition of our time and our leaders had been their insistence on slashing federal budgets for projects that might’ve saved New Orleans. The seeming characterization of our government that it was on vacation when the city was lost, and could barely tear itself away from commemorating V.J. Day and watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, to at least pretend to get back to work. The seeming identification of these hapless bureaucrats: their pathetic use of the future tense in terms of relief they could’ve brought last Monday and Tuesday — like the President, whose statements have looked like they’re being transmitted to us by some kind of four-day tape-delay.

But no. The incompetence and the ludicrous prioritization will forever be symbolized by one gaffe by of the head of what is ironically called “The Department of Homeland Security”: “Louisiana is a city…”

Politician after politician — Republican and Democrat alike — has paraded before us, unwilling or unable to shut off the "I-Me" switch in their heads, condescendingly telling us about how moved they were or how devastated they were — congenitally incapable of telling the difference between the destruction of a city and the opening of a supermarket.
      
And as that sorry recital of self-absorption dragged on, I have resisted editorial comment. The focus needed to be on the efforts to save the stranded — even the internet's meager powers were correctly devoted to telling the stories of the twin disasters, natural... and government-made.

But now, at least, it is has stopped getting exponentially worse in Mississippi and Alabama and New Orleans and Louisiana (the state, not the city). And, having given our leaders what we know now is the week or so they need to get their act together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned, should come to an end.
      
No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes.  Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.
      
But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.
      
It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, "we are not satisfied," with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which "we" he thinks he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the administration, although we still don't know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, 'I'll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die'?
      
I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant.

For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been — as we were taught in Social Studies it should always be — whether or not I voted for this President — he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week. I suspect a lot of his supporters, looking ahead to '08, are wondering how they can distance themselves from the two words which will define his government — our government — "New Orleans."

For him, it is a shame — in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick "I'm not satisfied with my government's response." Instead of hiding behind phrases like "no one could have foreseen," had he only remembered Winston Churchill's quote from the 1930's. "The responsibility," of government, Churchill told the British Parliament "for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence."
      
In forgetting that, the current administration did not merely damage itself — it damaged our confidence in our ability to rely on whoever is in the White House.

As we emphasized to you here all last week, the realities of the region are such that New Orleans is going to be largely uninhabitable for a lot longer than anybody is yet willing to recognize. Lord knows when the last body will be found, or the last artifact of the levee break, dug up. Could be next March. Could be 2100. By then, in the muck and toxic mire of New Orleans, they may even find our government's credibility.

Somewhere, in the City of Louisiana.

By and large.

Today I noticed myself three times using the phrase "by and large".  As it was being spoken the third time, while the words were still forming in my mouth, I realized I have no idea what "by and large" really means or where it comes from.  Having long fancied myself a gifted amateur etymologist, I wondered all day at the origin of this odd term.  Any help from out there in the Peanut Gallery would be appreciated.

And while you're at it, how about "slick as a whistle" and "pony up".

Meanwhile, I will continue my search for a "B" battery.

Labor Day

So, it's Labor Day in a country where the number of unionized workers has dwindled to %13. Does this dilute the meaning of the holiday? Of course it does...chiefly because the last three generations of AMericans have absolutely no knowledge of the history of the labor movement. It does not lessen the importance of those who struggled to organize labor in the last century and their impact on the invention (and brief dominance) of the American Middle Class.

That Middle Class is now crushed under a debt inflicted on them by a corporate plutocracy.  It also finds itself forced to contend with ever increasing pressures to conform to a social and politico-religious structure which more and more resembles the situation that drove our original settlers from England in the 17th Century. 

For your perusal and for purposes of edification and inspiring debate, I submit this from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States ;

"How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation!  How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion-dollar aircraft carriers.  How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system.  How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals bred -by economic eniquity- faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive power."

Happy Labor Day.

First shot

Welcome to the blog.  I've noticed that, no matter how horrific or ludicrous the event, (depending on the prevailing political winds) the same media whores are elbowing like 6 year-olds for their precious places in front of the cameras; Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, Trent Lott, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Orrin Hatch, Bill Frist, Tom DeLay, Cokie Roberts...and that most putrified and malignant of all the attention junkies...Geraldo Rivera.

It's a true "Rainbow Coalition" of assholes, a "Big Tent" of cretins...No Numbskull Left Behind.  After five days of the most offensive, mind-crunching tv coverage since the Michael Jackson trial, I discovered blood coming from my ears and finally turned to a baseball game, opened a beer and started a blog.